Billionaires Ted Turner and T. Boone Pickens called for quick action by Congress and the American people on energy and climate change to help save the nation and planet at an April 19 National Press Club luncheon.

Pickens, a legendary oil man who chairs the hedge fund BP Capital Management, was once skeptical about climate change but said he now believes it to be a real threat.

He has major concerns with “what is going into the atmosphere,” he told a packed ballroom.

Turner, founder and former head of CNN and also former owner of the Atlanta Braves, has turned his attention to the nation’s energy needs and climate change.

The joint luncheon began with Turner describing his effort to eliminate nuclear weapons, which he called the greatest threat to the “survival of the human race.”

“The United Nations voted unanimously to get rid of all nuclear weapons,” he said. But little has been done to implement the directive, he added.

Turner also urged an end to the world’s runaway polpulaton growth.

“We have one billion people going hungry,” he said. “In a few years it will be three billion starving every year. Oceans are collapsing (as food providers) from being over fished, and land is being over farmed…in an unsustainable way.”

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Karl Burkart is the Digital Communications Director for the GCCA, the Global Call for Climate Action, and TckTckTck, a network of 400+ diverse organizations working around the world for greater action on the growing problem of climate change. Karl also blogs on technology and the environment for a variety of publications. You can follow him on Twitter @greendig.